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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 7328537" data-attributes="member: 85870">So, this is the crux of @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a>'s problem with pre-authored backstory, especially the first half of your signature---The PCs searching for weeks of game world time, with the players making a multitude of action declarations that the GM knows to be fruitless beforehand, all to serve the purpose of "maintaining game world fidelity." Because by golly, the map's in the desk drawer in Room 14 of Castle Vitruvious. Too bad if those stupid players were too dense to pick up on the relevant clues! If they end up wasting half a gaming session (or more) on their fruitless search, that's the player's problem, not the GM's. Next time those players better be smarter, darn it! Oh, and if the players TOTALLY MESS UP the interaction with the Chancellor that would have given them easy access to Room 14? Too bad for them, so sad!I'm now in my forties. I'm a working professional with three kids. The players in my group are all in their early thirties and beyond, four of the five with kids of their own. I don't have time to waste---either as a player or GM---in my once-every-two-weeks gaming sessions for the party to go on a fruitless search for a map. If the map is crucial to continuing the plot of the game, then give the party the dang map already. And likewise, if I'm the GM, the LAST thing I want to do is lead the players around by the nose for a session or two just because they can't seem to figure out where the next "rail" of my plot is supposed to be. I wholly respect that your group has a well-established social contract in place, @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=29398" target="_blank">Lanefan</a>, that allows for "searching for weeks and finding nothing" to be a valid outcome. And I also realize that this exaggerated example is fairly well addressed in "DM-ing 101" in any number of online blogs and resources.But the fact is we have to keep re-iterating this because it's still happening out in the real world. Newbie GMs still make these kinds of mistakes. Sometimes even experienced GMs make these kinds of mistakes when they're trying to serve the needs of their intricate metaplot rather than the needs of the player experience. For me, I simply do not have the luxury for this kind of thing in my group. If a GM's plot is so set in stone that he or she can't find reasonable options to give this information out, introduce interesting new hooks that relate to the PCs dramatic needs in play, and still keep a reasonably coherent sense for how these pieces fit together, then that's not a group I'm interested in playing in. And yeah, I'm willing to admit that that's a pretty high barrier to entry for a GM.But the alternative is to waste my time in "GM setting tourist" campaign play, and that's something I will only tolerate to a certain point. Maintaining player interest, pacing, and dramatic tension are now VASTLY more important to me as a player and GM than "game world fidelity."</blockquote>

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